Merchants often operate electronic commerce (or e-commerce) websites using the World Wide Web (WWW) on the Internet to sell goods and services. Therefore, potential and actual customers (hereinafter collectively, “customers”) are able to more easily find and purchase the goods and services using, for example, an Internet-enabled computer having a web browser.
Those merchants having e-commerce websites are continually attempting to increase the number of customers visiting their website. To that end, the merchants often spend a great deal of time and money advertising. However, as many merchants have discovered, trying to effectively advertise using conventional methods such as, for example, through television, newspaper, and Internet advertisements, is very expensive and not particularly effective.
As an alternative or supplement to advertising, many merchants have set up affiliate or associate (hereinafter collectively, “affiliate”) programs. Under these affiliate programs, affiliates who register with the merchant are compensated by the merchant for directing or referring customers to the merchant's website. In the end, these affiliate programs are often less costly for the merchant to implement and administer compared to the expense of traditional advertising. In addition, these affiliate programs often lead to substantially increased sales of goods and services for the merchant.
Unfortunately, known affiliate programs have drawbacks. For example, some of the affiliate programs rely on a scripting programming language (e.g., JavaScript) and/or a web browser in order to identify the particular affiliate making the referral and thereafter exchange or transmit information between the merchant and the affiliate. While this method of identifying affiliates and supplying information is functional, it is not ideal.
In addition to using scripting and the web browser, some of the affiliate programs add variables to a universal or uniform resource locator (URL) string. This informs the merchant which affiliate provided the referral. For example, when a user of the web browser is investigating or viewing the website of the registered affiliate (at, for example, affiliate15.com) and the user “clicks” on a link for kayaks, which the merchant sells on the merchant's website (at, for example, merchant.com\kayaks.html), the affiliate's website generates the URL string of merchaniser.com\affiliate15\kayaks.html. The URL string includes the affiliate's unique identification number imbedded therein and, at the same time, takes the user to the merchant's page where the kayaks are available for purchase. As a result, the merchant is informed that affiliate number fifteen was the source of referral and the user is able to view the desired goods. While this method of identifying affiliates is functional, it also has limitations.
There exists, therefore, a need in the art for an affiliate program that passes a unique identification tracking code to a merchant who operates an e-commerce website (or to a third party) such that a secure server-to-server transfer or exchange of information can occur between the affiliate and the merchant and the merchant can conveniently track the source of the referral. The invention provides such an affiliate program. These and other advantages of the invention, as well as additional inventive features, will be apparent from the description of the invention provided herein.